Davin Bate
: "He's a typical mercenary―knowledgeable in his field, wise about his work, skilled with a blaster―though his morals are less flexible than most of his league and he generally keeps his priorities straight... not without forethought his own benefit, of course." : ―Obi-Wan Kenobi Davin Bate was a male human who worked as a smuggler and mercenary in the final decades of the Galactic Republic, including during the Clone Wars. He began his life as a freelancer at the age of 13 alongside his father and continued that work for much of his adult life, often taking jobs from the Hutt Cartel and other shady benefactors. At the start of the Clone Wars, Bate, like many scoundrels, saw an opportunity for profitable work by taking advantage of the war-torn galaxy. However, after several incidents with Republic authorities, Bate occasionally found himself working for the Jedi Order, smuggling supplies and information through Separatist-controlled sectors. Upon the Republic's reformation into the Galactic Empire, however, Bate stuck to job offers from wealthy business groups and organizations. Biography Early life Davin Bate was born on Duunir in 48 BBY into a wealthy family of traders connected to the Kozinarg Trade Guilds. Bate lived a comfortable childhood until the death of his mother at age 13, at which time the family was without a primary trade overseer, and Bate's father was unwilling to fill her position. Though the family company's bureaucrats were able to maintain the business, within a year of Bate's mother's death, they refused to allow his father further access to their wealth. Disgusted by their business partners, Bate and his father took most of the family's personal wealth and fled the planet to start a new life on their own. Starting out as entrepreneurs, Bate and his father offered ship maintenance services at various starports across the galaxy, but when one of their customers paid handsomely for transport from the Outer Rim to the Core Worlds, they chose a career in smuggling instead. During this time, Bate's father taught him everything he knew about the business world and whatever he picked up along the way about smuggling. Some of their passengers carried cargo with which Bate would break into and tinker, learning skills of stealth and lock-picking. By age 14, Bate had become an expert pilot, smuggler, and even slicer. When Bate was 15, he and his father received a job from the Trade Federation to smuggle advanced nav-computers to an outpost on Bimmisaari, with a paycheck bigger than any job they'd had before. The mission seemed routine, until they were ambushed by pirates in orbit over the planet. Unbeknownst to them, the pirates were actually mercenaries sent by Darth Sidious to intercept the hardware, as part of a growing plot to manipulate the Trade Federation. Bate and his father were forced down onto the planet and crashed landed near a city where the Trade Federation had a presence. The smugglers sent a distress signal to the Federation, but their Battle Droids did not reach the crash site until after the pirates had stormed the crashed freighter. Bate attempted to save some of the hardware, but his father insisted that they flee to the city and let the Federation deal with the pirates. Bate reluctantly complied, but the pirates were soon upon them. He watched as his father was gunned down while defending him, giving him enough of a window to escape the ensuing firefight between pirates and droids. The pirates made off with most of the technology while the Federation claimed what was left over, including the wreckage of Bate's freighter. Davin Bate's father was dead, and he received no compensation from the Neimoidians and was stranded on Bimmisaari with few credits and assets. Without his father's guidance, Bate felt forlorn. While he was coping with his losses, he encountered a familiar face: CR-S1, "Corsic", the maintenance droid who had served with his father on their freighter. Corsic escaped the Federation outpost after being rebuilt and helped Bate find transport off-world. They returned to Teth, the place of his father's workshop, where Corsic showed Bate his new starship: a modified Star Courier which Bate's father planned to give to him when he was old enough. Though he decided to lay low in smuggling jobs for a while, he kept his new ship in good repair and named it the [http://cwafanon.wikia.com/wiki/Preybird Preybird]. Clone Wars (To be expanded) Imperial Period With the rise of the Galactic Empire, Bate knew that his history with the Jedi would still be on record, and that he would be a prime suspect for smuggling Jedi fugitives. With his then fiancée Axandra Emery pregnant with their first child, Bate preferred to stay off of the fledgling Empire's radar. He and Corsic hacked into the Imperial network and used a computer spike they obtained from the Republic earlier to clear any record of their work with either the Jedi or the Republic. Bate kept the spike in place in the computer system should they ever "require additional information." Following the birth of their son, Quill (whom they kept safe with a friend on Naboo), Bate and Emery married, but continued their work as smugglers and bounty hunters, using the Imperial information to their advantage on numerous occasions in their missions from their various criminal clients, including the Pyke Syndicate, the Rang Clan, and the Hutt Cartel. Along the way, they saved a Besalisk female named Rowani from persecution by the Empire and used the data spike to clear her record as well. Indebted to their service, Rowani joined the crew and became good friends with Emery. Against his better judgement, Bate also kept in occasional contact with his old client, Gram Alnin. The crew thoroughly enjoyed the adventures they shared together over the course of the next few years. Bate even bought a couple additional ships to widen their possibilities. But Emery eventually wanted to settle down and use their wealth to start a simpler life for the sake of their newborn child. Bate agreed to settle down on the condition that they would keep the Preybird flying, even if they had no missions to complete. Downtime on Burnin Konn Davin Bate and his son Quill traveled to the mining planet of Burnin Konn following a business transaction on Gerrenthum that turned ugly when one party was revealed to have been bribing crew members of a local gang to defect in preparation for a full-scale coup. Though Davin had merely transported the group's cargo to the gang's dropoff, he felt it would be safer to lay low on a nearby planet rather than try and flee the sector. Davin posed as a miner and worked in the local mines, though he often smuggled out scraps of desh in his work, which he would give to Quill to sell on the streets while he was out. However, one day, Davin came to work late and discovered an industrial accident had killed several miners, including one he had befriended. Knowing the man had a daughter, Davin sought her out and found her at the mercy of a Kyuzo mercenary, Khalu, who was about to evict her from the South Sector Sinners gang. Davin rescued the girl, named Riley, and offered her protection with his crew instead. She opted to join him, so long as she could maintain her reputation on the planet. After they were able to leave the sector, Riley was adopted into the Bate family and came to appreciate her new crew, though she still preferred to run as a thief on Burnin Konn. Quill spent much time with his adoptive sister, both on missions and in thievery. The two formed a close bond and a notable reputation among the thugs of the Anoat sector, which Davin was comfortable with as long as the locals recognized him as Riley's sibling rather than the son of a legendary smuggler. An incident with the Cadevon family changed things, however. Quill was nearly killed in an arranged mining accident and Riley was thrown from a building by Rodian thugs, which crushed her leg. Davin and Axandra agreed to pull them both out of that line of work and evacuate them from the Anoat sector, making Riley a mission planner and sending Quill to a commerce academy on Duunir instead. They were able to continue their smuggling work in the sector after a while, but under Davin's close supervision. Personality and Traits : "You can hold onto any hokey beliefs you want to. You're free to think it helps you, but in my experience the only things that bring in profit are your own wits, experience and a good blaster." : ―Davin Bate Davin Bate was taught by his father that the only way to survive in the galaxy was to hold onto what mattered most and to follow the heart and instinct over the head. He continued to uphold these beliefs after his father's death and worked as a successful smuggler and trader for much of his life. He usually kept his income in mind above all other things, but he would also sometimes work his missions out in such a way that did not severely put others at a disadvantage. Nor would he ever take a mission he saw as unjust by his standards, regardless of the pay. Category:Male Characters Category:Bounty Hunter Category:Mercenary Battle Class Category:Class Rank:Soldier Category:Scoundrel Specialty Class